Explaining
29 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Writing Tags: characters, First Readers, reading, revising, The Dragon Pendant, writing
I finished reading Dragon a few days ago, and I’ve decided that it needs some work. When I said this to someone who has read it, however, the response was surprise. I had to explain why it needs work.
The writing is not what needs work. In fact, I think my writing improved (thanks partly to this blog) between Butterflies and Dragon. Yes, there are occasional sentences that need some help, but mostly the writing is good.
The story itself is not what needs work. Although one of my First Readers would disagree (she didn’t like most of the end), I think the plot, the characters, and the basic layout of the story are going to stay the same.
I think what needs work is the development of the world, or at least of the different magical races and their relationships. The preliminary work is there; I know what’s going on. I just feel that I’ve not explained things well enough for the reader. The biggest piece of this is the whole ”like Tibet” concept fail that everyone who has read it pointed out. But there are other things, too. Reading it with fresh eyes, as a reader rather than an author, I recognized places where the explanation isn’t very clear. The characters clearly understand what’s going on, but the reader has been left out.
So now I get to go back and figure out the best way to fill in the gaps.
